Category Archives: Uncategorized

March 8, 2014 · 11:14 pm

The Careless Passage of Time

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In the next section of Candace Orcutt’s book, Trauma in Personality Disorder, we read of Mr. H. and Mrs. M. Mr. H., she describes, presents a case with “traumatic overtones”, though the trauma isn’t obvious at first. Is it the rejection from his wife? The business failure, coupled with the partner’s nefarious financial actions? The problems with his adult children? He is depressed, Narcissistic, manifestly so (exhibitionistic?), and according to Orcutt, needful of mirroring, and not always with an accompanying interpretation. The Narcissist has an antipathy towards interpretation, she writes (p. 100), but she points out that the Masterson model bypasses this antipathy by wrapping such interventions with empathy for the patient’s vulnerability. With that seeming understanding in mind, one wonders why her transcripts appear to wander so often from the technique: instances of reassurance (p. 97: “it will get better in the end”, p. 91: “you have your kids and your pride. You’re managing”); so-called reasoning (p. 88: “Wouldn’t it be easier to stop fighting and accept the offer?”); a warning (p. 86: “Maybe it’s important to remember that reaction plays into others’ hands”); a confrontation (p. 85: “are you really defending yourself by turning this into WWIII”). The mirroring aims at maintaining idealized unity with the therapist; the confrontation a containment of acting out; the reassurance perhaps girds Mr. H. for his subsequent disclosures about an incestuous relationship with his mother. He ends therapy having broken a secret, and seems happy enough, with a new woman in his life and a better relationship with his kids. 

Orcutt writes that mirroring alone may be necessary when the patient is feeling especially vulnerable. This feels very permitting somehow, as though the interpretive piece were an extra chore for both patient and therapist; both are spared the task of dealing with the question of criticism that ambiguously lies within mirroring interpretations. Mrs. M is stoical, likes to “fix” problems. She seeks to control feelings, often by dismissing them, and thinks that having feelings and acting upon them are conflated concepts. She also discovers a family secret, through the experience of an accident in which no was injured, though Mrs. M. begins to suffer symptoms of PTSD. She wants medication, and hypnosis; she doesn’t want to dwell. She resists the psychologizing of her reaction from doctors, but soon integrates the therapeutic suggestion that her symptoms derive from stress, and more importantly, she acknowledges helplessness with respect to her fears. This appears to open up memories, including an incident in her teens wherein she felt responsible for a friend’s accident. Symptoms persist, and the therapist gives homework for Mrs. M. to interview family members about recurrent dreams of a little girl being killed. The investigation unearths a horrific family secret: a tragic incident in which Mrs. M’s four year old twin sister is accidentally killed by her mother’s first husband. Mrs. M. had witnessed the scene, but was thereafter amnestic, and the mother resolved to not talk about it. This is a painful story, one that had me reflecting sympathetically upon the father of the deceased girl as much as the horror of Mrs. M. She is distraught by the discovery, and blames the therapist for not preparing her for the burdens of memory. The therapist reassures that life will be put back “into one piece”, and adds that perhaps time will bring a change. Cliches aside, attributing change to the passage of time seems incomplete, even careless.

 

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February 16, 2014 · 11:22 pm

Gloria’s on the run now

Director Sebastian Lello’s Gloria is receiving well-deserved applause for being a tender, courageous look at the much maligned sexuality of aging women, but commentary is still missing the mark of this lovely film as far as I’m concerned. It may take a therapist to fill in the gaps.

Pauline Garcia plays a fifty something woman a few pounds above her best, but still possessing an abundance of charm, not to mention a quietly seductive streak. As the film opens, she appears alone at a bar of the kind of disco that doesn’t seem to exist in the youth-centered world in which I live. Meaning, she’s not exactly out of her element, as nearly everyone seems over fifty, soft around the middle and looking for love. Her character, Gloria, is not really a cougar, as some critics have suggested. There’s no evidence in the film that she is drawn to younger men, as that term implies. She lives alone, works in a sterile office in Santiago, Chile, and leads a lonely and, most importantly, a somewhat unrealized life. Among other things, she drinks too much, smokes marijuana, and seems to lack insight. She meets Rodolfo, a seemingly warm, gentlemanly fellow who diffidently courts Gloria on the dance floor. She gives him winsome looks that tread a line between demur and eager posturing, but in the bedroom, the truth of her hungry desire is unleashed amid carelessly dropped clothes; hers and Rodolfo’s fleshy groping.

All is good for a spell, though it isn’t long before Rodolfo’s feckless nature creates problems. Evasive about an ex-wife, a pair of dependent-adult daugthers, he unnerves Gloria with his reluctance to unveil her to his family. She appears to press the issue by instead introducing him to her family, so within a gathering that dovetails a birthday celebration with a family reunion, subtle points are made about her character. Firstly, the party also introduces Rodolfo to her daughter, who we learn is pregnant, and Gloria’s ex-husband, who was hitherto unaware of his daughter’s condition. The daughter’s truculence towards her father, as depicted in these scenes, is compelling, as it suggest two things: that the daughter, not Gloria, carries the ongoing protest against the once neglectful father, and by extension, absent men in general; secondly, given what we’re soon to learn about Rodolfo, it seems that Gloria is pathologically drawn to unavailable partners, and it is telling that no one appears to notice this. A moment of drama occurs as Rodolfo inexplicably abandons the party, which humiliates Gloria in front of her kids and the ex-husband. Rodolfo appears days later, complaining that he felt mistreated at the party, ignored by Gloria when feeling unwell, and more generally by the intoxicated, family-centered event. His account is thinly credible, but just about good enough for Gloria, who grants him a second chance.    

The affair continues towards disaster with grim inevitability. In the theater, I could hear the murmuring “uh-ohs” of fellow audience members, especially women, who saw where this was going. The pair visit Rodolfo’s place of business, a theme park centered around paintball which he either owns or manages. Among other things, the scene of Gloria playing with a paintball gun foreshadows the end of hers and Rodolfo’s affair, and the style of revenge she will likely seek. Meanwhile, a comic subplot about a stray, hairless cat that keeps infiltrating Gloria’s apartment takes shape for anyone looking for underlying themes. The cat belongs to an upstairs neighbor, a disturbed man who keeps Gloria awake at night with unexplained screaming fits. The cat escapes abuse and seeks bonding with Gloria, but at first she is uninterested, which is significant. She’s too attached to abuse to notice the clues that surround her.

Of course, Rodolfo abandons Gloria a second time. It happens during a romantic getaway to a stylish hotel resort. During dinner, after Gloria has playfully dropped his phone into a plate of soup, which prevents him from taking calls from his clinging daughters, he rises from his seat, kisses Gloria in a manner that seems eerily violent, and walks away, declaring he will be back soon. The audience knows better. He has disappeared, and soon we watch as Gloria pulls an all-nighter: she gambles in a casino, picks up a few friends, an oversexed date who leaves her blacked out on a beach (maybe she’s been assaulted–it’s not clear). Eventually, she wanders back to her hotel, where she learns that Rodolfo has stuck her with the bill. She is humiliated again, defeated.

Redemption occurs (partly) in the aforementioned revenge with paintball guns that Rodolfo has previously (and unwisely) gifted her. Otherwise, she later rejects his predictable appeal for a third chance, but concurrently accepts the cat’s presence, at least until her upstairs neighbor drops by to claim it. Finally, Gloria attends yet another social event, becomes as drunk if not drunker than she had ever been before, and once again makes her way onto a dance floor, which recalls the film’s opening. The difference is that she’s not looking for a partner this time. Dancing to the eighties party favorite, “Gloria”, a seemingly vapid tune whose lyrics are actually something of a cautionary tale, she dances with herself.

It will be tempting for some theater-goers to see the film as an anti-male statement, but I don’t think it is. Such interpretations are for those who tend to externalize problems; who think Gloria is simply a victim of bad men. It’ll take something else for audiences to learn something real from this work of art. It requires a mature sense to experience Gloria as a marvelous film about conflict avoidance, and the need to learn about oneself before committing to others.     

 

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February 11, 2014 · 8:14 pm

A Meeting of Trauma and Character

In a crude way, I think I have been caught within the divide that Candace Orcutt describes very well in Trauma In Personality Disorder.  For many years, while working in the field of substance abuse, I was assimilated into a clinical milieu that prioritized character work, more or less, while ignoring trauma work. Then, during the early part of the last decade, I was awkwardly moved to take the level I training for EMDR, the first third of which resembled a late-night infomercial. It was a heady atmosphere, with therapists and social workers enthusing over the prospect of diminishing symptoms in five sessions or less.

            Orcutt’s wonderful book is helping me melt the uneasy feeling that these two realms—character and trauma work—are mutually exclusive goals. No one ever said so directly, nor have I ever put that belief into words. But it’s been in the dialectics, somehow: the discussions between professionals working in teams, or voices heard at conferences, case presentations. Someone will speak of the need for boundaries, limit-setting with a patient, and on cue, someone else will counter with reminders about past traumas, the need for empathy and patience, as if these concepts were all at odds with one another.

I think it’s the same for readers of my novel, Crystal From The Hills. My protagonist, Chris Leavitt, doesn’t readily inspire empathy, largely because his characterlogical defenses (drug abuse, acting out, denial and regression) dovetail with dissociation, creating an aloof, if intriguing figure; a man who is difficult to reach, feel into.  

            I appreciate the breakdown of technique into the five steps: functioning, containment, strengthening, Cognitive and behavioral change, and insightful and dynamic change. There’s a common sense approach here, above all: the patient’s functioning, their surrounding circumstances, provides the “holding environment” for the work. An assessment of such circumstances is where the work starts. Secondly, containment: therapy draws attention to acting out, denying, blaming, substance abuse and other addictions, and the destructive consequences. In strengthening, a consciousness awakes, an afflicted individual starts to take responsibility; a therapist informs that setbacks may happen as a matter of the therapeutic process, or teaches relaxation techniques. The therapist doesn’t rush to provide insight ahead of the patient’s readiness. The patient realizes that the process of individuation occasions anxiety and sadness. Orcutt appears to paraphrase abandonment depression as part of trauma work.

            I appreciated Orcutt’s examples of confrontation of particular defenses. Most are readily understandable. It is even helpful to have each defense assigned a distinctive look and sound. The art of writing is to make ideas seem simple; the technique effortless. I know it isn’t. In the technique that is outlined here, the palette of interventions is widened. Therapeutic neutrality is flexed, and supportive comments and confrontations seem to live together in a therapeutic style. The case of Mrs. X called for many skillful interventions: confronting avoidance (p. 53, 55) and sustaining the thought as she defended against insight. Excellent. Integration is followed by a supportive comment from the therapist, a reminder that trauma distorts time, but that threats are no longer in the moment. Nicely illustrated. The case gets more vivid as Mrs. X becomes more anxious, starts calling the therapist in off hours, with panic about paralysis in her wrists, the fear that she is being held down. She abreacts. The therapist does some reality testing, followed by reassurance, encouragement. Reading this made me nervous, I have to say: this sounds draining.

            Yet the acting out isn’t done. Upon calling for hypnosis, Mrs. X “learns” of her father’s sexual molestation of her, and considers legal action, which would be undermined by the hypnosis, actually. In anger, she turns upon the therapist, who becomes a stand-in for a negligent mother. Like Chris Leavitt, perhaps, she is fascinating and disturbing all at once.

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Aside

Fictions from memory

At the outset of a psychotherapy episode, a man referred to me by a trusted colleague outlines goals drawn from a course of group therapy: “I’d like to get to the root of my anger,” he says. I nod, affirming that this seems a worthy goal, though in truth I’m not sure what he means. I mean, I know what a root is, and I know roughly what is meant by the phrase he uses. But I feel uneasy, because I don’t know how to get to the roots of this man’s problem. I don’t think we’ll decide upon something; at least, not in the tidy, package way that treatment plans and opening discourses on therapeutic goals suggest. I don’t think that anyone would find roots to a problem in the sense of finding a definitive answer.

In the first five chapters of Paul Renn’s Silent Past and Invisible Present, the reader gets a review of neuroscientific thought relating to trauma, the formulation of memory; the history of psychoanalysis and its treatment of trauma; how it conceives of childhood memories as either the product of fantasy or else real life events. I am reminded that Sigmund Freud once attributed fantasy wish-fulfillment to patient who reported seduction by a friend of her father. While acknowledging the real-life event, the focus turns to the intrapsychic as far as treatment is concerned, and the case study appears to predict the later disputes between the likes of Klein, Fairbairn, and researcher John Bowlby.

We have declarative memory, autobiographical information that speaks to who we are, or who we think we are. Emotional memory, including thoughts and feelings operating in a relational context, shapes memory and fosters experience of reality. Trauma, the readings propose, distorts or inhibits play, wounds consciousness, and generates false equations, the psychic equivalence between internal reality and external reality. “I know for a fact that she hates me,” said a teenage client once to me. I could not have convinced him otherwise—not that I tried. This problem likely stemmed from the aggregate of events that could not be remembered in detail, or symbolized by verbal description. They were rooted in affect dysregulations, the creation of a false self as trained through misattunements. The amygdala of the limbic system will have been developed to interpret cues coming from early caregivers, process the fight/flight emotional response and provide emotional meaning, and activate memories such that they are experienced thereafter in the moment, as if time stands still. The Hippocampus, that evaluative organizer of information, is inhibited in times of trauma, suggesting a triage of tasks that strikes us as—what?—short-sighted? I suppose I could reflect on experiences of cold feet and sudden holes in my stomach to relate instances of my enteric nervous system influencing my own reactions—memories in my body.

In reading chapters four and five, which seem to recapitulate post Freudian psychoanalytic theory and the debates of its adherents, I note the familiar divides between the likes of Fairbairn and Bowlby, versus Freud and Klein. I continue to wonder if the disagreements were overstated, and that a difference in accent, as in the weight of focus, was most apparent. For example, could not an emotional attachment to a caregiver (Fairbairn, Bowlby) be thought of as a subset of drive theory, in so far as a libidinal gratification is derived from an attachment to a caregiver? After three years of intermittent exposure to this chapter of psychoanalytic history, my philistine curiosity laments, what was the fuss all about? I appreciate the author’s reminder about Winnicott’s notion of the “capacity to be alone”. It seems to me an eloquent statement of the value of silence, as experienced by two people sitting in a room together, experiencing a feeling. It’s not a shared experience per se, because the autobiographies are different, and because each person’s experience of emotion is different. But there are therapeutic values present: empathy, attunement, a witnessing. I think I have these experiences. Finally, I am introduced to the term hermeneutic: the understanding of subjective inner reality, with a distinction drawn between historical truth and narrative truth, between real events that might not have occurred, but are nonetheless “true”. This notion is a tantalizing one. It lets me off the hook from knowing, and I’ve always liked that aspect of my chosen business. The problem is: it lets me off the hook from knowing.

In my novel, Crystal From The Hills, Chris Leavitt copes with his traumas, recent and past, with distortions, and through play: it is play gone wrong for an adult male with responsibilities and a supposed bright future ahead of him. What he really wants is to go back in time, pretend nothing happened, both on an intellectual and emotional level, and start life over again. The problem, solution, and the hope, lies in the witnesses: the impromptu, reluctant therapists that are the people around him. He believes what has happened to him, whether it has or not, because it fits his narrative truth, and his courage–his happy, yet unsentimental ending–is in facing his distortions.

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February 2, 2014 · 8:39 am
January 7, 2014 · 9:54 pm

Working Through Rehab: opening salvo

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So, you’re thinking of placing your kid in rehab? Or, maybe you’re thinking of getting a job in such a place, as a counselor, social worker, therapist, or whatever they’re being called these days. Do you know what it’s like being in rehab, or working in one? Have you visited a drug treatment facility, or heard stories from your neighbor who sent their kid to an out-of-state boarding school the previous summer, and later discharged just in time to begin senior year in high school. Are boarding schools the same thing as rehab? You wonder. A doctor outlines options: suggests therapy for a troubled teen, or an assessment at a nearby hospital, which boasts detox facilities and an intensive outpatient program, committing kids and their families to eight weeks of group and family therapy, ten hours a week, not counting the 12-step meetings that counselors will ask participants to attend on the weekends. A residential admission is the next level of care. It is the last resort as far as professional intervention is concerned—the last stop on the treatment ladder.

            Do you want this? Need this? Does a kid getting referred to rehab even have a choice: Meaning, is a court presenting rehab as an alternative to incarceration? Or are the parents the mandating authority? Perhaps your kid’s best friend has called you up, or texted you anonymously, warning that he or she is drinking or smoking much more than you realize, or “experimenting” with some other, supposedly more hardcore drug—one that will really scare you. You notice the kid’s grades are going down, and that more time is being spent with sedentary, seemingly anti-social activities: marathon spells of video-gaming; the vague notion of “hanging out”. What happened to that kid that seemed vibrant a year or so before: polite, energetic, and gregarious. Is this normal adolescence? You worry. How long do you wait to see what happens?

Maybe this isn’t your story. Maybe you’re a parent who has struggled with your own substance use. Maybe you’re an addict, and it seems like your kid is following suit. You don’t know what to do, or even if, given your own history, you have the aptitude or even the right to speak your concerns. After all, did you listen to adults when you were a teen? So, your kid is staying out all hours, has joined a gang, become a dealer as well as a user. Involvement in the juvenile justice system seems imminent, if it hasn’t happened already. You’ve already had several phone calls from Child Protective Services; one or two home visits. You and a couple of county social workers are on a first name basis.

Maybe you’re a fledgling member of the mental health profession, and working with troubled kids seems like a good idea: a stepping stone to a career as a social worker, a teacher, or, if you’re really stupid, a psychotherapist.  You’re a tweenie that’s looking for a job while in school. Or you’re a journeyman counselor that’s just completed requirements for certification as a drug and alcohol abuse counselor. An adolescent drug treatment program, attached, say, to a larger hospital, will offer steady employment, some modest benefits, if not a particularly competitive wage. You’re okay with that, maybe…for the time being. You want to reach young minds, work with those who may be more flexible in their ways, feel more hope than the adult addicts you’ve known. It will be less depressing, you think, working with kids.

Now that you’ve read the brochures and the websites of various programs, or taken tours of their sterile, hospital corridors and dorm-like accommodations, settle in for a first hand look at what happens in adolescent drug rehab programs, from the ground up, because that’s where I started. To do this properly, I have to go back in time to give some history, some context for what is happening today, especially in residential programs, for while some things have changed, others have not. Along the way, there are markers of change, nodal moments in my working life that in my opinion reflect trends in the business as a whole. If by the end of this text, the reader still wants to enter this field, or admit his or her child to a rehab like the ones I worked at, I’ll have no complaints. Just consider this the longest informed consent form in rehab history.

** opening of Working Through Rehab: An Inside Look at Adolescent Drug Treatment

 

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December 22, 2013 · 9:05 am

Getting Sucked Up

–A review of This Is The End

 

            The only problem I had was in not taking this film seriously, because I wasn’t supposed to, I guess. This Is The End, starring the latter day rat-pack of Seth Rogen, James Franco, Jonah Hill, Jay Baruchel, Danny McBride, and Craig Robinson, is a delicious comedy that moves so quickly and is so densely packed with ideas, it’s hard to believe it’s only 107 minutes long. Even the scenes that are gratuitously violent—and there are a few—seemed like breaks for my much taxed yet entertained concentration.

            The plot is as follows: Jay and Seth are old friends, actors/comedians or writers, reuniting in LA. At first Jay seems like a slacker visiting his more famous buddy (everyone is playing themselves), but really he’s an introvert: he craves down time, video games, weed and junk food. The last thing he needs is to hang out with Seth’s pretentious friends, headed by James Franco, the coolest kid on the block, whose party draws a who’s who of tweenie Hollywood. So, at the party, the likes of Michael Cera, Rhianna, and Emily Watson are present, being requisitely cool, yet patronizing Jay’s outsider vibe cuz he’s a friend of Seth. But the truth is they smell a hater. Craig’s Robinson’s (character?) calls him out, saying Jay is a hipster: someone compulsively “negative” about all the things one is supposed to like if attending parties like this. Actually, Jay is Holden Caulfield transported to the 21st century: he is sensitive, if self-righteous; brave, yet conflicted. Above all, he’s an alienated soul. In an ass-backwards sort of way, the cool people have him pegged.

            The initial drama (and it seems more like drama than comedy at this point) appears to be that of a friendship going south. Yawn. Not exactly a deep premise for a film about people who seem to still be in their twenties—reminds me of a novel I wrote, to be honest. At the party, Seth, a born politician, tries to make it all smooth, but to no avail. He introduces Jay to James Franco, who becomes insufferably pedantic when Jay fails to idealize his home’s artwork. A meeting with the unconvincingly “nice” Jonah Hill is similarly awkward, and before long Jay is looking uncomfortable, desperate to get away from all these sycophants, these successful people. Jonesin’ for a cigarette, he implores Seth to join him on a run to a convenience store. As they walk out, it seems like a friendship-tearing watershed is about to happen, and nothing but pre-movie hype, or leaks from the set or promo department would clue anyone in as to what’s about to happen.    

            Next thing we know a glass wall is being shattered, and fleetingly it seems like a movie cut from the cloth of Crash or Falling Down is about to unfold. Moments later, as a series of blue light beams spear down from above and “suck up” handfuls of extras into the sky, it seems more like The War Of The Worlds is the blueprint. Either way the yawning should stop. A chase is on, with explosions all around. Terrified, Jay and Seth rush back to the scene of the party to cue the film’s first real joke: the party’s still going while everyone is oblivious to the mayhem outside. As Seth jabbers about earthquakes, Jay’s mind is spinning, having noticed the cosmic elements of the attack. He tries to bear witness to what he’s seen, but inevitably, his weirdness is reinforced by his manic explanations, and everyone looks at him like he’s crazy. Predictably, Seth commits the film’s first act of betrayal, joining the others in their dismissing of Jay. But soon there is comeuppance as partygoers hear commotion, step outside and face the burning hills of Hollywood. While some may have thought a South Central revolution has occurred, such assumptions are quickly shattered as the earth opens up, swallowing up most of the film’s cameo stars. Most hilarious is Michael Cera, who seems to enjoy playing a tweaked out superjerk who gets impaled by a streetlamp. 

            Horror film rules: those who deny get wasted, except those who also deny but are meant to learn something life-affirming as part of the story. Next, as the rat-pack holes up in James Franco’s bachelor pad, reality testing begins. It’s OMG time, sprinkled with lots of LOL. First task is to gather food and other supplies, and argue about who gets what. The middle section of the film is a satire upon all things to do with Hollywood and actors, riddled with obscene improv. On the surface, the dick jokes, the homophobic play, and general grossness may seem tasteless or old hat, but the dialogue is inspired lunacy, not so much written as spoken on the fly, as if this was a film made during a slumber party, with the cameras rolling after the actors got high and then stayed up all night. Despite the chaos, a series of themes are insinuated. First is the self-effacing idea that actors are really pussies instead of action figures, and the first lesson observed by all these divas is the importance of not being a fraud. Several scenes follow in which the guys are portrayed as feckless and woefully un-resourceful—unable to share either water or even a Milky Way bar. 

            Jay is the voice of sanity and the film’s moral center, and Baruchel plays this role with remarkable freshness, even charm. He squints, bewildered as his peers flitter in and out of delusion. Jonah Hill says this drama is like a “sleepover”; he’s trying to stay positive, “make this fun”. Jay introduces to their consciousness the possibility that a Biblical “End of Days” scenario is occurring, and likens the blue beams he’s seen to events depicted in the Book of Revelation. The others scoff, all except Craig, who is the next character to manifest a heroic streak. A party/survival scene crasher arrives in the form of Danny McBride, who steals food, water, masturbates on the plants, etcetera. If this is hell, then he’s a devil’s helper, a Caliban taking his revenge on everyone responsible for his lifelong ostracism, about which he expresses self pity with grim, unapologetic delivery. Franco, whose home Danny is shitting on, is the most offended, so next a theme about how society expels the unwanted is played out. In the midst of this, one of the funniest and most clever scenes involves the return of a cameo star. Emily Watson breaks in, looking for refuge. Initially, she is relieved to find familiar faces, but when she overhears the guys talking about rape in the hallway outside her bedroom, she loses it and becomes something like Hermione on crack, taking out a phallic balloon model (of course) with an axe. On the one hand, this scene is an excuse for a few Harry Potter jokes, but it also depicts another aspect of Jay’s outsider morality. In truth, it seems misguided for him to raise the specter of rape, appealing for guys’ sensitivity in light of Watson’s outnumbered and vulnerable status. They, of course, feel accused rather than enlightened, and an important message is sent—albeit through humor—about empathy being lost amid the noise of defensiveness.

            Still, something has been sparked by Jay’s consciousness raising: namely, an attention to ulterior, if not unconscious motives. Soon guys are challenging Jay’s self-righteousness, questioning his self-proclaimed honor, pointing out that he’s been lying about avoiding Seth’s company in recent months. Losing his temper, Jay strikes Jonah Hill, whose “nice guy” quality Jay has always hated and distrusted, and storms out. There’s a nice, incisive moment wherein Seth turns away, hurt but also hapless, hiding. His habit of passivity is likewise being called out, and thereafter a comic drama about denied rage ensues. The comedy takes the lead, so it seems fitting that this theme is expressed through demonic possession, with Jonah Hill performing the parody, first of Mia Farrow from Rosemary’s Baby, and then, naturally, becoming the possessed creature of The Exorcist, hilariously mocking Jay’s Hollywood-taught attempt at an exorcism: “Is it compelling, Jay? Really? It’s not that compelling!”

            These guys have all seen too many movies. Save for Jay, movies are their religion, their only reference points for what is real. As the film nears a climax, Franco’s home is destroyed, and the guys are forced into the streets to survive. Craig plays the hero and attacks the “Red Dragon”, the ultimate villain whose appearance, Jay has foreseen via Bible passages he’s found, strangely enough, in Franco’s home. (side note niggle: is it credible that Franco would own a Bible?) But just as he’s being devoured by the beast, a blue beam appears, and Craig is saved. The others witness this and rejoice, now realizing how to survive this ordeal. But hasty attempts to “be good” aren’t gonna work, no matter how entertaining they may be for the viewer. Heroism, or goodness, must be spontaneous and real. To survive, one must no longer be fake. This leads to another hilarious, not to mention suspenseful finale, in which Franco’s pretensions, his arrogance, lead to his downfall. While being “sucked up” (to heaven, they presume), he gloats at Danny McBride as he begins to rise. Immediately, he is punished for this unsportsmanlike conduct, and is dropped back into McBride’s lap, left to his mercy. Meanwhile, in order to survive, Jay and Seth must resolve their conflict, their flat estrangement, with quick decisions, inspired action, and genuine brotherly love. Do they survive together, reunite for real? Or, do they go their separate ways? You know the answer. In the end of (the day), this is a movie, and togetherness—love—always prevails.

            This Is The End finishes on a cop out note, making a hipster joke out of Jay and Seth’s heavenly ascension to the tune of a Whitney Houston song. It’s a funny scene, successful in beating back tears that might—emphasize might—have been shed in watching this bit climax the film. Yeah, it’s a movie, but it’s a guy’s movie: in the end, what we do is drink beer, masturbate or fuck chicks (or try to, at least), take a hit of something, say fucked up things, and party til’ we drop. BFF.   

 

Merry Christmas Nick

   

 

 

 

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December 2, 2013 · 1:17 am

Sealed In The Memory

Now let me turn to another movie, similarly unconscious in its approach, but a movie that for me carries much fonder associations. 1971’s Melody (or Sealed With A Kiss–original UK title) is like a feral child scampering recklessly over its audience. The film paired then-child stars Mark Lester and Jack Wild, sort of fresh from their mainstream success with the oscar-winning Oliver, made three years earlier. Melody is set in contemporary London, as evidenced by an opening credits montage in which a camera pans over the Thames river, heading south towards a slumish neighborhood wherein the action will be set–probably someplace like Battersea or Lambeth. Viewers are introduced to the two male leads who are participating in something called Boy’s Brigade, a marching band. The character of Latimar, played by the angelic-faced Lester, seems sour and out of place. He mutters bitterly about his mother, who signs him up for activities like this without considering his feelings. At the end of the opening scene, said mother comes to collect Latimar and asks if he’s making any friends, at which point a boy named Hornshaw (Wild) opportunistically jumps into the back seat of their convertible. The characterization proceeds: the mother gives Hornshaw, a scruffy Jack The Lad type from the other side of the tracks, a sniff of class disapproval. Hornshaw winks precociously, begs a ride, and generally exhibits the rakish charm for which Jack Wild’s characters were briefly known in the sixties and early seventies. He is Mick Jagger to Lester’s John Lennon. The two boys later become friends, as it seems both are lonesome in their separate and wholly unexpressed ways. Meanwhile, back at the Latimar’s somewhat middle-class home, a rather contrived set of scenes follow in which social ambition, class snobbery, anti-Pakistani racism, and homophobia are feebly satirized. More successful, however, and certainly more fascinating, is the Oedipal drama that unfolds here. Latimar’s mother, who clings to her son in a manner that is subtly indecent, coos over his interests, especially his artwork, which include his debut efforts at painting a female nude. There is a hint of flushed response in the mother, who becomes tongue-tied and clumsy, breaking a model rocket her son has been working on. Young Latimar is passive and uncomplaining in this scene, yet he inexplicably shows his aggression when earlier lighting his father’s newspaper on fire.  

Hornshaw, on the other hand, is strictly working class, and as such–it is implied–is spared such neuroses as those which afflict Latimar. Unlike his budding friend, he is not concerned with individuation; the struggle to become his own person despite the self-serving needs of a parent. For Hornshaw, such dramas are past him, if they ever did exist. Apparently orphaned, he seems to be the caretaker for a grandfather figure who is referenced in the film but not shown. His are the demands of day-to-day life–cooking sausages for his grandfather, cleaning up–interspersed with seized freedoms away from home. Thus, at school Hornshaw is a rebel, and not just against common authority. Throughout the film, Wild’s character acts out an objection to modern education, questioning the utility of Latin instruction (favorite line: “I couldn’t speak to a dead Roman even if I knew the bloody lingo, Sir”); the condescension of student/faculty social activities; the arrogance of state-driven religious instruction. Many of his peers are like him: rambunctious, violent; ever dashing around looking for someone to hit, something to kick at or blow up with a cherry bomb. As a post-mod rocker deprived of a hippy milieu in which to protest, Hornshaw is destined to revolution, even if it’s only with a headmaster’s stolen cane, or a firecracker thrown into the seat of a teacher’s car.

Latimar’s revolt is gentler and more romantic. Thrown into the mix is Melody, played by novice actress Tracy Hyde, who is as beautiful and blank-slate looking as Lester. First, it is he that looks upon her like Romeo seeing Juliet for the first time. For several more scenes, we watch as the two children, both likely aged eleven, possibly twelve, meet each others’ eyes, gaze, and wordlessly fall in love. Significantly, their first proper scene together features them saying nothing to each other, but instead playing their musical instruments in tandem: a recorder for her, a cello for him. It’s also significant that Latimar appears to have abandoned home interests that might be intruded upon by his mother. There are aborted attempts by the two would-be young lovers to connect, but at first it’s the pre-teen peer group that blocks them. After all, the boys still think girls are stupid, school dances are fledgling, painfully awkward events, and as one of the female extras laughingly quips, “I thought kissing made babies!”

Today, this kind of ignorance, or sweet innocence if you prefer, would likely seem unrealistic. Kids of this age group today seem far more, uh, knowledgeable than perhaps their counterparts were forty years ago. Back in the early to mid-seventies, when I first saw Melody, I felt like the characters in the film: gleefully mindless, playful and wide-eyed…unknowing. Of course, I had no idea what to make of Melody‘s various subtexts, whether intended by the filmmakers or not.

The character Melody’s drama seems positioned somewhere between that of the boys. Socioeconomically, she seems aligned with the Hornshaw character, as her parents, a shrill, pedophile-fearing mother, and a beer guzzling, oft-absent father (played amusingly by Roy Kinnear), also seem decidedly working class. Not that Melody seems preoccupied with these curious and largely unexplained elements. Indeed, her character seems the most cheerful–that is, the least disaffected–of all the children in the story, which is perhaps one of the reasons Latimar likes her (“my parents are such a misery”, he later complains). That said, her cheerfulness transforms later in the film to cool defiance, and of the three main characters, she seems the most sexually mature, despite Hornshaw appearing to be older.

The ultimate rebellion is hers and Latimar’s decision to elope, which leads to the climax of the film: an impromptu wedding ceremony, Lord Of The Flies-style, under a railway bridge, with all of the kids in the film acting as witnesses. It seems symbolic, if silly from a practical standpoint, that this wedding takes place during school hours, nearby the school and with all of the kids wearing school uniforms, rather than on, say, a weekend, with everyone in plainclothes. Predictably, the forces of evil–sorry, the teachers–combine with one or two parents, like Latimar’s mother, to try and stop this institution and society-threatening event. The attempt of the baddies fails, naturally. The wedding comes off without a hitch. A great, iconoclastic battle between youth and establishment ensues, which youth sort of wins. Teachers get their comeuppance, and Hornshaw gets satisfaction. But the real victory belongs to young love, which is all Latimar needs. He and Melody escape the scene and disappear into the somewhere-in-London sunset, serenaded by a Bee Gees song on the soundtrack.

Melody is like a blissful dream born of sixties zeitgeist and pubescent wonder: one of my favorite examples of sweet, naive filmmaking that captures a bygone time and sensibility. Once gone from my memory except in fragments, I’d rediscovered the film in recent years on You Tube, and later purchased the DVD, complete with the scratched celluloid that betrays not only the film’s age, but also its discarded, forgotten reputation.

I wish I could be twelve all over again.

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December 1, 2013 · 5:48 am

Unconscious Heat

It would not have been understood. My Thanksgiving thoughts, jaundiced as they may be, would have sprinkled awkwardly over the All American ambiance: an afternoon of football, the latest video games, the turkey dinner; the Hollywood movie. I’d stopped by the previous evening for the initial gathering of the clan. My arrival was greeted with good spirits, good-natured yet somewhat edgy verbal jabs. My neo-Hobbit hairstyle would take a hit over the next day or so; so too would my age, now halfway through its forties, but getting an advanced estimate by reps of the younger generation in attendance. It was a loving if unknowing occasion, with tight hugs all around to replace words that might get in the way of the basics. We are all living disparate lives, in truth: there’s a sense that everyone is nurturing ambitious ideas inside while being passingly aware of each others’ trials. The exceptions are those events that become known through soundbites: the busy working life, the tough job, the grades from the last quarter, and most thankfully–the successful operations. We substitute games for conversation, and play it safe with our vanilla “what’s new” overtures. The rooms in which we bond have little room for intimate talk, and in its place we are becoming stranger and ever more bizarre and unconscious in our repartee.

The after dinner mint was the aforementioned movie, much hyped as a comic action film to have us rolling about, guffawing in concert with contemporary pop culture. “We’ve seen it three times!” boasted one viewer, apparently eager to give it a fourth run. The would-be gem in question, The Heat, received proselytizing laughter throughout from guests predisposed to its appeal. However, it was in my opinion an excremental cop adventure; an exercise in casual misandry disguised as light, if vulgar comedy.  As buddy movies go, this flick was not without its social conscience, though it is this very conscience that should cause offense. Sandra Bullock plays a nerdy (but quietly “hot”, of course) and careercentric FBI agent saddled with an obnoxious partner, played by Melissa McCarthy. McCarthy’s character is a cross between Jabba The Hut and Roseanne Barr, and aimed at audiences who have at least forgotten who Barr is. Bullock is a gifted light comedienne of Mary Tyler Moore pedigree, and the juxtaposition of her act against the antics of McCarthy are tolerably entertaining for about a half hour. After that, the movie’s attitude becomes harder to stomach. 

About two thirds of the way through, the movie sort of announces that it has something to say about the mistreatment of women, especially in the workplace. This from a script which features, by my rough count, about a half dozen scenes in which men’s genitals are either shot at, maimed, or plainly insulted. High minded morals/hypocritical low humor, coupled with staggering inattention to irony: sadly, this is a Hollywood tradition, though I can’t remember the last time I watched a movie in which such comic cliches were resorted to quite as often. Then there’s an incongruous scene in which McCarthy’s character callously brushes off a former one night stand after grabbing the man’s face and kissing him aggressively. The joke here appears to be that she is an unlikely manizer. But what else is the point, I wonder?

Now, let us pause. Had I given voice to any of the above opinions at any time during the holiday festivities, then two things would have occurred: firstly, my comments would have been drowned out by the teasing over my use of unnecessarily 50-cent words like misandry (BTW: merely the analogue of the popularly-known word misogyny); secondly, I would have been taken to task for being ill-humored and over-analytical. “It’s only a movie,” some say, implicitly disrespecting an entire medium. I obviously disagree, and I’d put it to my nay-sayers that if The Heat had instead made light of violence towards women, especially sexualized violence, then each and every one of them would have thought it the cinematic atrocity that it actually is.

But the blinkered political correctness doesn’t stop there. Also of note are the racial demographics depicted. By my observation, there are three male characters in The Heat (out of many) who are not portrayed as being either villainous, stupid, or feckless. There is the Latino supervisor of Sandra Bullock’s character, a more or less decent, if disapproving man; a charming, if benign African-American character played by Marlon Wayans, who appears to have a crush on Sandra Bullock (this plot point goes nowhere–an indicator of scenes being cut, maybe); and a comic, though street-smart drug dealer, also African American. All the other men: White, Irish, or at least European-looking, are buffoons or villains. Again, if those demographics had been reversed, I’m convinced that many would and should complain, light comedy or not.

Full disclosure: a backdrop of this latter reaction is that I have been largely unexposed to the opposite trends which have no doubt persisted for decades. Though I know from childhood that Westerns have traditionally given a raw deal to Native Americans, for example, I have not followed the racial-profiling trends of action or action/comedy films nearly as much over the last twenty to thirty years. This is mostly to do with taste. Since becoming a discerning viewer, I simply have not patronized action movies with any kind of regularity, so I have not observed the raw deal that minority actors have gotten through movies with titles like–come to think of it–Raw Deal.

Regardless, this issue is a beta element, as psychoanalyst Wilfred Bion would have said–it is meaning drawn from a thin pastiche of life. The bigger issue is that of fragmented discourse in all units of society: across social groups, between branches of government…within families. The first pair of arenas are big sandwiches to bite into. Closer to home, I have to wonder, if privately, what the rules are for the youngest and, in all probability, least conscious of observers. At some point over the holiday, the youngest member of the dinner gathering, an 11 year old who seemingly enjoyed The Heat, learned that he would not be allowed to watch Monty Python’s classic Life Of Brian (admittedly, not a “light” comedy) because–get this–it features nudity. I held my tongue. Not my place, and all that. I guess the biases of this society are reflected in such moments, or else implied by a ridiculous movie ratings system. So, imagine the memorandum from studio heads to producers, directors, and writers: “penises can be blown off as long as they are clothed during the process.”

 

 

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Graeme discusses plot points and themes from his novel, Crystal From The Hills, and introduces plans for a follow-up work.

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November 30, 2013 · 10:46 pm
November 12, 2013 · 11:41 pm

Marshall Field Was Wrong

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The whole ethos of treatment shifted: customer service means saying things along the lines of “I’m sorry for your inconvenience, let’s see if we can fix that for you.” The therapeutic intervention is more like, “I see that you’re angry, let’s see if we can figure out what that reaction is about and also see if we can solve this problem.” The differences are crucial and multi-layered, and I don’t think non-clinicians (in many cases, policy makers) understand the differences. Therefore, managers were habitually striking impromptu bargains with family members, overruling clinical staff that had diligently counseled families about the importance of their participation. Invoking the flexibility mantra, a Saturday floor manager would grant full visiting to a parent that had missed required activities, and who had cited work or other supposedly unforeseeable conflicts. The activities stopped being required, in effect. Meanwhile, the only conflicts in these scenarios were the ones being habitually avoided. These parents that maneuvered their way around program structure: they had impassively heard the rules and structure outlined upon admission; they knew from experience how to maneuver within systems. They’d been doing it for years with schools, social services, employers and drug courts. They promised compliance up front but reserved their resistance for later times, when loop holes in the system had been cunningly assessed.

Claiming that which had been promised by case managers, who were often not around during visiting times, the splitting ruses started working and as a result, patterns of manipulation were reinforced. Flexibility indeed. The team approach was fostering increased instances of splitting, team fragmentation. The solution to this problem was to ignore it, and before long the term splitting seemed to become archaic; shuffled off to a TC concepts museum alongside benches, dusty hospital scrub shirts, image breakers and old man Bobby’s suspenders. If nearby the case managers might have intervened with the visiting day arguments, but increasingly they weren’t available for these kinds of situations either. The availability of case managers, to collateral contacts, to the electronic pull of computer screens, and not the kids in the program was of supreme importance, meaning therapists were sometimes even missing group therapy sessions in order to complete documents, or to meet with collateral contacts who sometimes visited the facility without bothering to make appointments. I’d never been asked to compromise my direct duties to clients—certainly not spontaneously—when I was a case manager. Some kids, meanwhile, complained that they were hardly getting to speak to their therapists. Were they customers? Clients? Consumers? Patients? Kids? I wasn’t sure what to call them any more.

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